


she runs

by desperately



Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M, One-Sided Attraction, One-Sided Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-03
Updated: 2015-03-03
Packaged: 2018-03-16 05:53:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3476942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/desperately/pseuds/desperately
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She runs from who she is. In a sense, she is dead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	she runs

**Author's Note:**

> Credits to decato for beta-ing this.  
> Disclaimer: Masashi Kishimoto owns Naruto.

"Sakura! Did you hear?" Ino exclaims excitedly as she swings Sakura around to face her, nearly causing a passing orderly to drop his armload of files.

"What about?" Sakura's forehead creases in curiosity, her foot tapping out a four-beat rhythm in time to her impatience.

"Hatake's getting married!" Ino gushes, her inner romantic stirred by the gossip told to her by his elderly neighbour. "His fiancee's really pretty; civilian, though. Never thought he'd go for a civilian but they go so well together that--"

She is cut off by Sakura's sigh, but this rude gesture does not stop her from noticing how Sakura pales a shade when she hears her words. "I need to finish my work, Ino-pig. We'll talk later." 

Ino realises, with a sinking feeling as she watches Sakura's slowly diminishing back, that she may have just discovered the reason why her friend had refused for so long to speak the name of the one who held her heart.

The next person who realises who Sakura's heart lies with is Naruto.

Well-versed in the ways of love due to his relationship and then marriage to Hinata (or so he claims), he cannot be called the Hokage if he fails to notice the lingering looks and soft smiles Sakura grants Kakashi. He feels a sadness so profound for her because Kakashi has never looked at her like that and it pains him to see her very self being eroded, languishing in yet another fruitless love.

He tries to bring it up with her once.

"Sakura-chan, isn't it time you started settling down?" He asks, the note of worry in his tone and eyes enough for her to forgive him for butting into what she considers very personal matters.

She smiles in response and merely asks, "With who?" The teasing and undertone of helplessness tells him that she has already considered this matter and found no solution except to continue as the way she was -- full of love and loving but never loved.

He flounders for a moment before settling on an old friend. "Sasuke-teme. What about him, Sakura?" Sakura is struck speechless for a moment by the seriousness he holds over this matter, but she recovers her voice even as she sinks into a posture of weariness and defeat.

"I don't love him anymore, Naruto, you know that." Sakura shoots him a sharp look, hoping against hope that he has not divined her feelings for Kakashi, but he has always been observant, and he also always has been a book wide open for her to read. The knowing, sad look in his eyes tells her all she needs to know and it is from the silence that she finds the strength to instill steel into her voice as she tells him never to bring this topic up again.

She knows Naruto is only worried about her wellbeing and wishes for her to be happy, but she is content being miserable as long as --- despite how sappy and typical it sounds -- Kakashi is happy.

Sai is, perhaps, less caring of who she loves, but rather all he asks about is whether she has read the mystery novels he gave her awhile back for her birthday yet. The blank look of absolute confusion he bestows on her when she asks if he is going to ask her about her love life too is priceless because it is not emotionless blank but confusion blank, and she quietly thanks Kami-sama for Sai in her life, and Naruto for having redeemed him from the abyss of inhumanity.

Sasuke, however, flies into a rage when he realises it, because their relationship is of friends and siblings, which could have once upon a time developed into something more, and he thinks the only reason why Sakura could have fallen in love with that one-eyed bastard is because he has led her on.

After he calms down due to Sakura's reassurances that that was not the case, he quietly wishes her well despite the anger and resentment still simmering in him and the desperate hope that she would stop breaking her own heart, knowing that she will not budge on her chosen love once she has truly, irrevocably fallen in love with him. 

Even after Kakashi is finally married, she remains single. At thirty-five, she still receives teasing from all her friends for being yet unattached; the Konoha Twelve and their jounin sensei are all married or otherwise attached and she, she jokes, she is the cat lady of the bunch. Kakashi laughs and argues that dogs are much more fun than cats, lightly smirking in challenge at Sasuke, at which Sasuke shoots him a glare, miffed as he reminds Kakashi that the family of cat summons bound to his family is of noble blood esteemed in the summons world. As she watches her pseudo-family bicker, she sinks into her wistful world and misses the sharp glance Kakashi sends her way.

It is the week after that that Kakashi's civilian wife seeks her out at the hospital. "Will you have a cup of tea with me?" She asks tremulously but determinedly, perhaps a little intimidated by the strong, powerful woman before her who she knows can shatter mountains with just her bare hands and yet with those very hands piece together a man who has been shattered into millions of pieces. (Perhaps she knows that Kakashi is better off with a woman who can match his strength.)

Moved by the determination and strength in this weak, fragile civilian woman's eyes, Sakura agrees. They sit down to tea together at a quaint little teahouse a ways down the street from Kakashi's apartment, and Sakura curses the fact that she knows that Kakashi proposed to the woman in front of her in this very place.

The waitress asks for her order, but Kakashi's wife answers for her, Sakura looking at her in surprise that she knows her favourite tea. With a tight smile, Kakashi's wife responds to her unspoken question: "Kakashi has mentioned it before." They proceed to fall into an unbreakable silence even by the arrival of their order.

After moments of stony silence, Kakashi's wife finally opens her mouth, only to plead, "Don't take my husband away from me." Sakura smiles bitterly and casts her eyes downwards to her still-hot tea, murmuring, "Are my feelings so obvious that even you know?"

Kakashi's wife feels a pang of pity for this woman who can't seem to love the right person; oh, of course she has heard all the rumours of her younger years. And now this. "I am his wife. How can I not recognize love towards one's own husband when I too love him?" Kakashi's wife smiles sadly at her, as if she knew the burden of unrequited love; and perhaps she did.

"And he?" Sakura asks, a little desperate hope that she may be allowed this last bit of dignity. "He..." Kakashi's wife hesitates. "He has an inkling, I think, but he isn't sure."

"Oh, hell." Sakura throws her hands up in the air. "How am I going to ever face anybody after this?" She moans as she lightly bangs her head against the cool tabletop. Kakashi's wife giggles slightly at the comical image she presents, causing Sakura to look up and give her a sheepish smile. They fall into a comfortable silence, the ice suddenly broken and Sakura knows that despite being in the position she wanted to be, she could never hate the lady sitting before her.

Sakura clears her throat before she declares, "Don't worry. I have no intention of stealing Kakashi away, even if I could. He's happy by your side, and that's all I ever wanted for him." She smiles warmly at Kakashi's wife, Yume and she relaxes, smiling delightfully as she prepares to impart a piece of information not known even to her husband.

"Good, because..." Yume looks shyly up at Sakura. "I'm pregnant." Yume is basking too deep in her joy to notice the look of absolute defeat and resignation that flashes across Sakura's face, and by the time she really looks at Sakura again, Sakura's face is only full of warm congratulations and sincere joy.

They part amicably and when comes the time for Yume's check-up, Sakura is prepared for Kakashi's watchful eyes, her mask faltering not even a little under his scrutiny. She smiles and gives the due congratulations and promises a tearful Yume to be the one to deliver the child when the time comes. She does not even allow herself to be reminded that she cannot have children, no, not since Sasori ---

Sakura wishes, hopelessly, to have children, to be loved, but she knows it will never come true. Kakashi and Yume's miracle child is born into the world at 3:24 in the morning and as she holds this fragile life in her arms, she smiles at the baby, so utterly in love with it despite it not being her child, before she has a fleeting impulse to smash it against the ground, but she is horrified by herself and rids herself of such a thought by quickly handing off the baby to another nurse, Kakashi watching all the while.

The guilt weighs heavy in his heart because despite the walls she puts up, he knows her too well to know that she is able to hide her emotions so convincingly that if he had known her a little less thoroughly, he would have not realized her love for him. He resolves to speak to her and finally settle the unresolved feelings between the two of them once and for all.

After making sure his wife is fine and resting, he asks Sakura to come out into the hall where there is relative privacy. He does not beat around the bush -- years and years of his life had been wasted that way and this was one occasion where he absolutely needed the truth immediately. But the moment he speaks the words, he regrets it, because he realizes he has callously belittled her and hurt her in one go as the hurt in her eyes spill out in the form of tears and the next thing he knows is his cheek stings and she will never talk to him again. His heart hurts so much more than his cheek, but he consoles himself that it is better this way -- he and his wife would be left in peace to raise their child and she would be free of any delusion that he was not a cruel man, which would ultimately persuade her to finally give up and move on.

But things never work out the way you want it to, do they, Kakashi bitterly muses as he watches Sakura play with his beautiful, beautiful son in the park opposite his house. She absolutely adores his little Kiseki, but she never speaks to him anymore, all forms of communication cut off that day in the hospital. His wife comes up behind him and puts her arms around him, and murmurs, "It's not your fault." And he sighs and relaxes, knowing that all this while he has needed someone to tell him that not everything was his fault. And so he let go.

When an undercover mission calls for the most elite (everyone knows these are the ones people do not return from), Sakura volunteers and she packs up, saying her goodbyes to all except the one she should have the most. Ino is teary but full of confidence in her friend's ability despite the odds against her; Naruto feels guilty for being the one to send her on the mission; Sai gives her an awkward kiss goodbye, saying it was recommended by the books, to which she laughs and pats him lightly on the head; Sasuke merely folds her into his arms for one last hug and Kakashi -- Kakashi is not there to see her go.

She smiles and turns to leave even though they beg her to stay, at least until he shows up ("He will come, you know it, he's just late as usual," Naruto pleads), but she shakes her head no and smiles one last time before she vanishes into the foliage of the surrounding forest. She is right, in the end. He never shows up, and when Sasuke goes to him and demands an answer from him, he merely stays silent, even as Sasuke cocks a fist and punches him, effectively breaking his nose.

Reports from her make their way to Naruto over the course of the year, until December when one arrives that states that her mission has been completed, but her cover has been blown and she is being chased. They wait and wait and wait; but they receive no further reports on her status, and when a squad is sent to look for her, they find her dead body surrounded by her fallen assailants, all seeming to be asleep, but no matter how they shook Sakura, she would not wake up; she was dead.

When the news reaches Ino, she falls to her knees and cries into Chouji's shoulder as she mourns for the girl she met all those years back, the flowers she had been arranging previously crumpled into a mess of plant matter and petals in her hands.

Naruto, of course, is the first to receive the news, and Hinata is there to assuage his guilt that he may have killed one of his best friends and sent her to her death. He spends the night drinking in a manner oddly reminiscent of Tsunade, who, bless her soul in heaven, was not the best example he could have followed but he was mourning; give him a break, said the middle-aged housewives whose sons had been saved by Sakura's hands over and over and over in the past.

Sai sits oddly still in the bar beside Naruto as he silently and almost mechanically keeps raising the dish of sake to his lips, wishing he was back in the days of Root where he could not feel because goddamn his heart hurt.

Sasuke allows himself a night and a night only of mourning. He knows, better than anyone else that lingering on the things that made you hurt would screw you up, and so he cleans up after Sai and Naruto that night and the subsequent nights. He relives only the happy memories, visiting places where they had good moments and avoiding those that reminded him of the bad.

Kakashi -- Kakashi falls into a state of shock. He has certainly heard of the phrase 'You never know what you've got till it's gone', but he never imagined that it would apply to him. He has always thought himself wise enough and mortal enough to appreciate the things he has, but apparently not enough as he staggers backwards from the chūnin who delivers the news and glances at him with a mixture of pity and contempt. Yume stays silent and merely offers him her embrace, because no matter what he said or thought he knew, a part of her husband had loved Sakura deeply, perhaps more deeply than even he had loved her.

(To be truthful, Yume feels a flash of triumph when she hears Sakura is dead. She had always admired her, but she was too important to her husband, too close, too good together, too in love with him. Kakashi is hers. She tucks this brief feeling away, too ashamed to even think that she was happy that someone had died. But this quickly fades when she sees the guilt in his eyes settle and she knows that her husband will now remember Sakura forever, always think about her, always mourn her, always --- The resentment flares to life. She burns silently by his side. Kiseki wonders when Onee-chan will come back.)

Far away on a little islet off the shores of Fire Country, Sakura smiles and lets the winds run through her hair, taking with it the last vestiges of Haruno Sakura.


End file.
